Neetiva’s story reads like a Hollywood blockbuster, but none of it is fiction. It’s real, it happened to her. And she wants you to know it, because she is living proof of how God uses your gifts to give people new lives.
Having grown up in a strict cult from birth until she was 15, Neetiva didn’t know about drugs. She didn’t know the signs. Neetiva met her husband in her 20’s and things were seemingly great for a while. One day her husband was arrested after a high-speed police chase. He went to jail and while he was there, Neetiva began to get sick. Really sick.
Her husband’s drug dealer – someone she had considered a family friend – came over and told her what was happening: she was detoxing from drugs. He then confessed that her husband was in a gang that drugged women to take advantage of them while they were asleep. She was one of their victims.
“They were injecting me at night, and they probably were drugging me up and having sex with me.”
Heartbreak Upon Heartbreak
Neetiva was horrified and then heartbroken as she realized her children had been exposed to these unspeakable evils.
“I can’t tell you what my six year old has been through. I can’t tell you what he’s seen because it wasn’t something I would even imagine was happening.”
Neetiva lost custody of her kids and her despair tripled. Now that she was addicted, she kept using drugs on her own. Eventually she ended up in jail herself. The judge sentenced her to three-and-a-half years, but agreed if she could find a rehab facility that would take her in the next 30 days, she could do that instead.
That’s how Neetiva found the Mission. “I planned to just go there to get out of jail, and as soon as I got there, I was going to leave. God had other plans,” she says.
God’s Good Plans
Those plans included showing Neetiva how much He loved her.
“I was raised with Buddha, Sathya Sai Baba, and Transmediums. I didn’t know about God, and so it took me a while to receive it, understand it, and open the Bible.”
But once she opened the Bible and learned the truth of the Gospel, she never looked back.
Neetiva completed the recovery program 2 years ago and has stayed sober ever since. She now works at our Changing Lives Center for Women and Children, and loves encouraging the women who are fighting for healing right now.
Clinging to God’s Promises
“I remind them that God didn’t give us kids just to take them away. He will give our children back. It’s just in His timing, not in ours,” Neetiva says.
She’s still waiting on that timing herself.
“I haven’t seen my kids in six years. . . but I know one day, God will allow that to happen,” she says. “Because of you, recovery is possible.” Yes, and amen!
